The Comeback of Stained Glass

“However, there are new discussions that stained glass is seen more favorably by younger generations.”

DeGroot cited recent research conducted by the Barna Group, which found that Millennials preferred more traditional looking sanctuaries instead of so-called trendy buildings.

Stained glass windows are one of the fonder memories of the church I grew up in. But they’re routinely assailed in many Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, especially among our “trendier” church leaders.

Readers of this blog, however, would have gotten a different view. From this 2011 post:

I had a student who went to an old-line, downtown church that has morphed into something of a “mega-church” (“mega” relative to the size of the community it’s in.) As a result of this they built a new multi-million dollar complex in a more suburban setting. But my student wasn’t all that pleased. As we were standing around, he confessed to me that he preferred the old church they were in because it had stained glass windows and he could look at them and enjoy them during the service.

My years of teaching at the university level have convinced me that there’s a lot of conventional wisdom about Millennials that could stand some revision. I don’t see the alienation from earlier generations that, say, the Boomers exhibited, although given the way the Boomers have done distrust and alienation are certainly in order. The business about the stained glass is part of that, and it should make a few people stop and think.